Secret 24: The Secret of Stewardship

Excerpted from Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 2:
A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Being a Better Leader.

Our approach to Stewardship is based on our belief that the effectiveness of our authority is inversely related to the frequency with which we use it. Instead, we work to interact with everyone—regardless of where they are on our org chart—as if they are our peers, negotiating as equals to arrive at freely chosen commitments. It's all about how to take authority out of the equation and increase the effectiveness of our leadership in the process.